$100 in 1919 is worth $113 in 1946,
because prices increased 12.7% over that period, an average of
0.44% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
12.7%
Average inflation rate
0.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$12.72
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1919 → 1946
$113
$100 in 1946 → 1919
$88.72
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1946
Between 1919 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 12.7%, which works out to an average of
0.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.89 buys in 1946: the 1919 dollar
lost 11.3% of its purchasing power over
these 27 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1946 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,127, and $10,000 becomes $11,272.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.64
$10.00
$11.27
$20.00
$22.54
$50.00
$56.36
$100
$113
$500
$564
$1,000
$1,127
$5,000
$5,636
$10,000
$11,272
$100,000
$112,717
$1,000,000
$1,127,168
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1946
Between 1919 and 1946, food rose the most, up 6.5%, while apparel fell 5.0%, against 12.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.44%
$113
Food
0.23%
$106
Apparel
-0.19%
$95.03
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $79.19 by
1932, on its way to $113 in 1946; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $113; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1946: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1946/